911 FAIL

"We're sorry. 911 Service is currently unavailable."
You may have seen on the news about the big storms that hit Virginia and Maryland last week.

Over a million people were without power, many for over a week. A few even longer.

What you may not have heard was that the entire 911 emergency system went down as well.

In the county where I live there was no 911 service for just over seven days. This in a time when emergencies were actually happening all over the place.

It occurred to me I do not have the direct number to the nearest firehouse, hospital or police station. I still need to collect those.

This was just a THUNDER STORM. What if something really bad happened?

The police were in no position to protect us at all. Not even the usual illusion of protection.

--You are responsible for your own safety. Carry your gun.
at

10 comments:

  1. MSgt BJuly 12, 2012 at 5:27 AM

    Imagine if the 911 service had gone out for 7 days in Chicago?

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 12, 2012 at 6:34 AM

    I heard that for 2 days they were trying to keep it quiet for fear of a crime wave if it became common knowledge. The news got wind of it from people, not 911.

    ReplyDelete
  3. SpicerJuly 12, 2012 at 11:33 AM

    Illusion is right. They are the clean up crew.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ZerCoolJuly 12, 2012 at 11:55 AM

    I agree with a lot of what you write, but not this one. I'm copying/pasting my thread response from ArfCom for this:

    The 911 system didn't fail. I guaran-damn-tee there were dispatchers sitting in the center answering what few calls came in and handling significantly more than normal radio traffic.

    Verizon's network failed. Verizon is a business. For Verizon to put in a fail-over location and secondary lines into a 911 center would be huge money. This is contradictory to the goals of a business. Will the re-evaluate things now? Certainly. Will anything change? Unlikely. Are they going to pay out a few settlements and attorneys in court? Probably, if/when someone can prove damages.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJuly 12, 2012 at 12:30 PM

    I live in that same county. I don't care where the point of failure was. If I were to dial 911 I would get nothing.

    I got emails from my work and even my HOA saying it was not available and a regular number. But my aged father didn't.

    It doesn't matter if the dispatchers and patrol officers were on the job.

    911 was off line. I don't care why.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJuly 12, 2012 at 12:35 PM

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/911-failure-cut-23-million-off-in-northern-virginia/2012/07/11/gJQAWGuedW_story.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. ZerCoolJuly 12, 2012 at 12:52 PM

    Anon - I absolutely understand where you're coming from, and it's a completely legitimate point of view.

    What aggravates me is the initial fingerpointing that came out suggesting that the failure was "911". If you'll note in the article linked by the second Anon above, the blame is falling squarely on Verizon for a multi-point failure. Generators didn't start, redundancies didn't...

    Marty is right. YOU are responsible for your own safety. Maybe this opened some eyes, maybe not. I'm sorry your father didn't get an email from someone, and that's a hell of a strong argument for tighter-knit neighborhoods and communities.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Weston11July 12, 2012 at 6:11 PM

    I think JB was basically saying what he has always said, you cannot rely on 911.

    It's just that response time went from 15 minutes to never.

    We are all on our own, all the time.

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousJuly 13, 2012 at 5:44 AM

    911 is stressed on normal Friday nights in the summer. Do no rely on 911 for actions that require firearms. Ever. No.

    It's ok for an ambulance. Sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  10. JB MillerJuly 13, 2012 at 5:19 PM

    Hey! We talked about this last night on the Squirrel Report!

    ReplyDelete